CTE Skill Builder Recognition

11/9/2015 – CCCAOE Memo

Dear Colleagues,

We now have formal recognition of the CTE skill builder students that we serve. On Monday November 2nd the field based Scorecard Committee adopted a new metric which will highlight this previously ignored segment of our student population. The specifications are being refined so the exact wording of the metric is not yet ready for publication. The essence of the metric is the cohort will be defined by those students who take a course or courses in SAM A, B, or C and the measure will be median income gain.

It should be noted the Scorecard Committee includes representatives from all constituencies of the system from faculty to presidents as well as representatives from the California Department of Finance and the Legislative Analyst Office. The Scorecard was created at the direction of the Legislature and serves as an annual report.

Preliminary information suggests there are over 92,000 skill builder students annually and they make up 26% of non-completing leaver CTE students. This means we can account for another significant portion of our students. Their median income gain is over $4000.

The skills builder metric was developed over a three year period and proposed by VERATAC (Vocational Education Accountability and Technical Advisory Committee). It is an advisory group to the Chancellor’s Office on workforce accountability issues. The Committee is made up of CTE deans, faculty, sector navigators, institutional researchers, and Chancellor’s Office staff. CCCAOE helped move the metric forward by featuring related general session speakers and breakout sessions at its conferences.

As your CCCAOE President, I want to say thanks to all who contributed to this great victory and to acknowledge Nick Kremer for his persistence and leadership on this effort.